Snape - a werewolf bigot?? Was: Say it isn't so Lupin!!!
houyhnhnm102
celizwh at intergate.com
Sun Jun 10 23:22:11 UTC 2007
No: HPFGUIDX 170106
colebiancardi:
> Perhaps it isn't bigotry, but a deep concern for not
> creating new werewolves, because according to lore,
> werewolves also kill humans, not just bite them.
> [...]
> I know what JKR has compared Lupin's werewolfishness
> to a disease, but I also look to the lore behind
> werewolves as well, which JKR has drawn from. Lupin
> seems to be the exception to the lore (he doesn't
> relish biting or killing humans and doesn't want to),
> but again, I view him as the exception, not the rule.
houyhnhnm:
This is exactly what makes me uncomfortable with the
idea that Lupin represents people with disabilities or
chronic diseases. Parents in the real world who do not
want their children attending school with another child
who is, say, HIV positive *would* be acting out of pure
predjudice because there is no rational basis for their
fear. But a werewolf is a different matter. Werewolves
really are dangerous. To the argument that Rowling can't
have Lupin be a traitor because it would send a bad message
about people with disabilities, I would say it seems to me
that she has already done that. There may be anti-werewolf
*bigotry* in the WW, but Rowling has not shown it to be
groundless. On the contrary.
Lupin, in human form, may not relish the thought of
biting or killing humans (though the fear of doing so
is not enough to make him cautious), but without
Wolfsbane, Lupin transformed is, in his own words,
"a fully fledged monster."
Being HIV positive or having a seizure disorder (to
name just a couple of conditions that do excite prejudice
in the real world) do not put other people at risk.
Being a werewolf puts other people at risk.
If Lupin is supposed to represent people in the real
world, I'd say he is a little closer to the guy with
multiple drug resistant TB who insisted on flying half
way round the world without a mask, than he is to an
AIDS patient or someone with a physical disability.
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